Ivory Harpoon Point
Old Bering Sea hunters decorated their harpoons with incised designs
in the belief that their beauty, which honored the animal spirits, drew
game to the hunter.

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Old Bering
Sea Harpoon

The origin
of harpoon technology, which is the basis for hunting sea mammals and
for the entire North Bering Sea adaptation, is complex, and many details
of its development remain unknown. Two types of harpoon heads developed,
the barbed non-toggling form, which probably originated from the old paleolithic
fish harpoon that predates man's arrival in the Bering Strait by thousands
of years, and the toggling form, which toggles beneath the skin and blubber
where it cannot be broken off by ice and holds heavier prey like whales
and walrus.

The origin of the toggling harpoon is more recent and more obscure.
Primarily a North Pacific and North American arctic implement, early
toggling harpoons have been found in Old Whaling and Wrangel Island
Chertov Ovrag sites at 1500 B.C. However, earlier prototypes are known
from Maritime Archaic Indian sites in Newfoundland and Labrador as early
as 5500 B.C. Could it be that this early "Eskimo" implement
was actually introduced to the Western Arctic by central Arctic Pre-Dorset
peoples who we have reason to believe acquired toggling harpoons from
the Northeastern Indians 4,000 years ago, 500 years before the appearance
of toggling harpoons in the Chukchi Sea? Alternatively, did they reach
the North Pacific from Jomon cultures in Japan where toggling harpoons
as early as 5,000 B.C. have been found?

Following the introduction of the toggling harpoon into the North Pacific,
harpoon distribution takes on an interesting pattern. Rarely are barbed,
non-toggling harpoons found in the Bering Strait, whereas they remain
common farther south. In fact, it has been noted that the boundary between
the two forms closely followed the southern limit of the winter pack
ice. From this comes the suggestion that toggling harpoons are advantageous
in regions where floating ice is abundant because they do not protrude
outside of the wound and cannot be broken off when the animal strikes
the ice, either accidentally or purposefully, whereas in iceless waters
this refinement is unnecessary.

Carvings of spirit helpers on the harpoon further strengthened the
power of the weapon; feathers and and wings transformed the harpoon
head into swift birds of prey. Stylistic diversity and the absence of
identical designs suggest Old Bering Sea art was produced by individual
hunters, rather than by designated craft specialists. Yup'ik Eskimo
hunters of Southwest Alaska continued the traditions of Old Bering Sea
hunters into the 20th century.